Ask Not
by J.C. Banister
Summary: A woman who has run from her past returns to her homeland only to discover that guilt is inescapable. An experimental ghost story involving original characters and the fallen city of Nabudis.


Ask Not

**Ask Not**

_This is, to say the least, a very strange piece of writing. My prompt for creating this was to write a ghost story as Mary Shelley (the author of Frankenstein) was challenged to do, to write "(a story) which would speak to the mysterious fears of our nature, and awaken a thrilling horror - one to make the reader look round, to curdle the blood, and quicken the beatings of the heart." This story was and still is an experiment. I wrote it in a style that I had never written in. I also do not write horror of any kind. Likewise, this did not turn out to be a traditional ghost story. It is not directly scary or directly about ghosts. It is about the boundaries of imagination and delusion. It is about the fragility of the human mind. It is about the suppression and release of guilt. Most of all, it is about a nightmare, the total collapse of a life. Also...it is very hard to understand and I think my point is muddled. It raises questions, yes, but its an experiment and because of that, I'm not willing to throw this out as 'a failure' but view this as a learning experience. Please leave a review but don't flame. Flames aren't helpful. The characters are original. The place is never stated but is the Nabreus Deadlands, which I imagined to have once been the town area of Nabudis. Perhaps not entirely accurate in portrayal. I know there aren't any ruins in the Deadlands. It takes place sometime after the ending of FFXII. _

_Disclaimer: I do not own Final Fantasy (any of them), I do not own the lyric at the story's end which is from a song called Elle G. by the Newsboys, I do not own the song or the band, and I make no money off of this._

"I regret nothing."

Spring casts its magic over the landscape as it does every year. The warm breeze caresses her body, but chasing its tail is a biting cold, digging vicious claws of guilty pain into the unsuspecting. She doesn't mind. This is why she wears a jacket.

Cyril glances at her. "Nothing? A strong answer. I've always admired that in you, Maggie," he says casually.

Maggie doesn't answer, concerned instead with the half-collapsed gateway looming out through the rain. The mud slips and slides beneath their traveling boots as though trying to ward them away from their destination. They just plow ahead, adjusting raincoats, unheeding.

Cyril views the world with different eyes than Maggie, his always alight with fascination and wonder. His eyes rove the ruined gate with a sort of infatuation only an active mind can generate. He pulls back his hood and stops to admire shattered stone and splintered wood with lusting fingers. Maggie does not have the time for such an exploration. She needs to see what hides beyond.

Many ruins. Far to the range of her sight. There a house. A storefront. Once a park. There a tower. Echoes of life. For a moment, she feels the wind slip past her jacket, but the moment is brief. The pattering of rain ceases. Rays of determined sunlight have pushed their way past restricting clouds. Arms of light embrace the dead architecture like fallen loved ones.

Maggie is silent. She descends amongst them. Cyril wanders past in an ecstasy of discovery.

"Oh…this will benefit my research for sure. You would never believe…Maggie? Are you alright?"

Maggie offers him a nod. "Lost in thought. It's been so long since I have seen this place. I remember what it was like when it was still living," is her reply.

"Now you regret?" he returns after a pause, concerned.

She continues in her ramble down overgrown roads. "No. It's just nostalgia…" She pauses mid-step. Her eyes linger a moment over the shadowed edge of a schoolyard. Was she imagining or did she just see the face of a leering child? Perhaps just the faint trace of her own face as a child? Once there did grow here a mulberry tree she had loved to climb. All around her she can still feel her infant heartbeat in each buckled wall, her fingerprints on each singed stone and tree. She shivers despite the spilling sunshine.

Cyril has wandered off again. He scribbles blindly in a notebook, taking notes and sketches for his new book. Maggie feels the urge to keep walking and obeys. She has little desire to assist her husband's work. Cyril will be too caught up to notice for awhile. She wanders, letting her feet follow the trail of her mind. Every step resurrects people long dead and places long gone within the scope of memory. She doesn't feel attachment, perhaps only a mild sense of change.

"Maggie, look at this! Do you remember how this works? I've read about it," Cyril is calling somewhere behind her. She can only imagine he's found an old bicycle or something equally as foolish. She doesn't acknowledge him and he doesn't pursue, distracted again. She has found what she was seeking.

Barely damaged, an undersized house is squatting almost comically amongst the ruins of other once identical homes. She is not hesitant to open the door and peer inside where the dust sleeps. The clouds come to life as her motions stir the air. Inside the close-ceilinged room of her childhood, her feet find the squeaking board that no hammering can fix. Everything is the same. She tries not to look too closely. Beneath the layers of dust, there is a layer of death clinging close. Her arm brushes a table. It rattles, nothing more. She feels no pain. However, she finds herself at the entrance to the stairs that lead to the one place in the world she could call only her own.

Her jaw tightens to trap pouring words. There is no stairway. Bare wall where it's never been. She relaxes. No. Just a sheet of wood, sloppily nailed in place to conceal. She steps back before beginning to pull at the barrier. As though the nails are made of sand, it comes away in her hands. Familiar smells muted by time burst free in its wake. They vanish just as soon, expended.

She climbs. Here the air is not as heavy with dust and decay. The sun brightens through clear windows. Memory assaults her of a time when the light outside those windows were red. The tree that had been her ladder is long since gone. She closes the door, becomes for a moment a young girl again. Her fearless hands seek out the treasures of her youth. This blanket soothed nightmares too terrible to speak of. That ribbon was won in a footrace, her childhood pride. This picture showed faces she meant to forget. Her eyes can't seem to leave the crumbling paper in its burnished frame. Faces that once had meaning, side by side.

She drops the picture. Where hers had once appeared, was a glaring torn view of the back of the frame. Her visage was scratched away by something sharp and hating. She feels cold. She doesn't even bother to pick it up. She thinks she hears Cyril's voice outside. She wants to hear him close. She runs. She finds a blank wall. She recoils and falls to the ground. A strange frantic cry tears from her.

"Maggie!" Cyril is calling her. She climbs back to her feet, feeling lighter. She must have just had a moment of panic. There is the door just as it was. She climbs up to her feet. However, as she opens the door she finds herself in the same room she just left. She backs up quickly. Still the same room. She closes her eyes just concentrating on staying calm.

"You're dehydrated…or something…just relax…." she murmurs to herself. When she opens her eyes she can see the hallway on the other side, but she isn't willing to move just yet. She reaches up to set cool hands against her too warm face and closes her eyes. She concentrates on the sound of her heartbeat in the silence. It grows louder, more steady. She opens her eyes. It grows louder. Louder still. She can feel the walls and ceilings reverberating with it. This is not her heartbeat.

She sits heavily on her old bed, gripping the dusty covers with hands unable to do anything else. From the corner of her eye she thinks she spotted a figure walking outside the window, even though it is on the second story. Suddenly, an even louder sound seems to set the world around her trembling like a leaf in a strong wind. A musical but jarring sound. Clocks ringing from all over the house. Maggie slides to the floor, covering her ears. The noise begins to sound like wailing. An inhuman ghostly crying within and without of her own mind. She picks herself up and runs blindly. She leaves the house but the noise continues endlessly. She stumbles.

_Maggie! Are you-!_

Crumbled houses are rebuilding themselves. Ghostly plants claw up from the dirt in the shape of once strong trees. Shadows are forming themselves into the shape of people. They turn to stare as she charges through her reforming hometown. In the distance ahead of her, the outline of a younger girl is running, many papers clutched tightly in her hands. The phantom people are just watching her.

If they knew what she held they would stop her. Maggie knows where the girl is going. She's taking documents to a man who means to destroy this place. He'll give her a way out, her deepest wish, at the cost of these lives. The girl means to go through with it. Maggie has never regretted it. The choice has given her the life she leads now.

The screaming goes on and on, unending, pounding in her head, bringing tears to her eyes.

_-be alright? She's been like this-… _

As they run, the town is growing to its former glory, people filling and filling the streets. They're nearly to the capital building, shining white where before it had been a blackened hole. There is a jet waiting there, one that will take the girl far away.

_-published, Maggie! It's a big success! I wish you-…_

Maggie charges after her phantom self, hoping to catch another escape. A thought freezes her. Cyril.

"Maggie! Would you look at this! I've never seen this before. Maggie, wait! Wait for me!" She turns to find Cyril jogging towards where she waits on the steps. He pauses half-second, overjoyed and smiling. Briefly, the sky overhead seems to turn red for a moment.

"Cyril!" she screams.

A shining light strikes a distance away and a wall of fire seems to surge through the city. There's no time even to scream. The people are consumed. Buildings are crumbling. Trees are alight. Cyril turns back to look with an innocent confidence. It rips through him, not even leaving a scorched skeleton behind. She screams and other screams join her.

_Maggie! Maggie, don't be afraid… _

She starts to run back but arms grab her and drag her inside the building. The wall of fire vanishes. The doors close. There is her phantom self running through groups of people fashionably dressed and masked. Maggie finds it hard to move in the bulky dress, her feathered mask restricting. Her phantom self is ascending a ladder, a doorway leading to the jet awaiting her.

She flies to the base of the ladder with so many others, reaching up hands to her phantom. The girl merely looks at them all coldly and continues on her way, some projectile breaking away the ladder so she can't be reached. She is gone. The ones left behind are silent for a moment. The music tentatively starts again.

Maggie finds herself pulled to her feet by a man in a green mask. His eyes, Cyril's eyes, are wide with fear but he smiles Cyril's smile. The windows are glowing red.

"Dance, Maggie. Just dance and you won't even feel it," he speaks in a voice like every voice she's ever heard. A wave of hopelessness sweeps over her. She feels hot tears as they whirl.

"Alright…" she sighs.

In the reflection of the now shaking windows she sees the image of herself as a child sitting alone and crying. A man comes up to her and she raises trustful eyes as he lowers his gun. The gun fires pointblank. The window shatters.

In a heavily curtained room, Maggie has thrown herself to the floor. Cyril hears the noise and comes, older, graying. He calms her thrashing with a few words and his wife whimpers, seeing things that aren't there.

"Maggie…Maggie…its ok…" he murmurs in a pained voice, as he's had to these many years. As he has everyday, he prays that somehow her mind might return to her once this fit is done. So far, this prayer has gone unanswered. The wind whistles loud and wailing beyond hidden windows.

"Regret…I regret…" Maggie sobs to someone who won't hear her words.

_Silence all…_

_Now go to sleep…_

_The water's free…_

_The well is deep…_

_How can we return that which we never could earn?_

_There we have it. Very bizarre, huh? In case this wasn't clear, the beginning and ending of this story are the only 'real' parts. When she falls down in her old room, the story lapses into her delusions. Please leave me a review and a little constructive criticism. Help me with my experiment please! Thanks so much for reading!_


End file.
